The Trump Presidency 14

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Former Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, thinks Trump can be beaten in 2020. Ryan made the comment while speaking at a lecture symposium at Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach Florida Monday night. A local news website reported his remarks.

You guys are catching on. Now you wanna guess why President Trump didn't get his wall funding sooner?

Chris B.
 
From the outside US views on Iran etc. seems bizarre. I read recently how Cuba has tried to undermine US democracy! Perhaps the aborted invasion of Florida? Ot the serial assassination attempts against the US president? I am not sure that the current president really needs any assistance in undermining US democracy. What exactly has Iran done to provoke the US? Did an Iranian navy vessel shoot down a US airliner? How many US navy vessels have the Iranians sunk? The Iranians signed an agreement with the US and abided by it - obviously extremely provocative. Iranian forces assisted in the removal of ISIS alongside US forces. For Europeans the US fear of Iran and Cuba appears to be a phobia; irrational to a point that it impacts on normal life.

Obviously everyone friendly with the US chants "Death to America". It's hard not to feel the spirit of brotherly love for them, but I do try.

You seem to be a victim of propaganda. For some reason I'm getting a "Baghdad Bob" vibe.........

Chris B.
 
There are 2 issues here:

- A question of degrees. Yes, its true... someone like RBG typically takes a more left-wing stance when doing rulings. But, they at least make an attempt to appear unbiased. Compare that to Judge Drunky McRapeface, who spent a good chunk of time lashing out at various people. Even if you think "Hey, nothing wrong with attempted sexual assault", his rantings during the hearings should have been enough to have him disqualified.

Mmm. Judge Drunky McRapeface was disqualified, in my opinion, by his history of perjury and obvious partisanship. The later revelation of attempted sexual assault while drunk is problematic, but not disqualifying. Good people can and do make bad decisions at times. What's more telling about a person is their reactions. Kavanaugh's reaction there was disqualifying, in and of itself, much as it did seem to quickly earn him the backing of extremists who had been wary that he'd be too "soft."

The extremist right-wing agenda that he was selected to push, of course, is a huge negative, but was hardly unique to him.

- The longest serving Justice on the supreme court is Thomas, who has served since the early 90s. Since that time, the U.S. has had a republican president for about 12 years. They have had a democratic president for 16 years. While the supreme court shouldn't necessarily be subject to issues of political popularity, the fact that the republicans have managed to install a majority of supreme court justices despite having less control over the white house during that time is problematic.

Honestly, it wouldn't be so bad, except for McConnell's utter BS with Garland. And the courts in general.

For Europeans the US fear of Iran and Cuba appears to be a phobia; irrational to a point that it impacts on normal life.

See Exhibit A. Trump's tweet warning about Obama potentially starting a war with Iran to make himself look tough that was posted just a little earlier in the thread. That's honestly probably quite explanatory when it comes to Trump's actions to try to provoke war there. As for Cuba, well... Heh. That gets a bit more complicated. It's not actually fear of Cuba, itself, though, in pretty much any way.
 
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Obviously everyone friendly with the US chants "Death to America". It's hard not to feel the spirit of brotherly love for them, but I do try.

You seem to be a victim of propaganda. For some reason I'm getting a "Baghdad Bob" vibe.........

Chris B.

So the Ayatollah's need to further restrict freedom of speech and demonstration. No responsible American would threaten destruction on Iran - would they?

I am genuinely interested what exact material sins has Iran committed against the US this millennium? If you go back in history forty years Iranian students took US diplomats hostage during the revolution; but how many hostages were killed? Equally the US overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran only 20 years earlier resulting in several hundred deaths.

I hear Iran is a threat to the US but how? The people who say this also said Iraq had WMD and was a threat to the US, but the subsequent war seems to have done little for peace or the security of the US and killed a lot of people including some US citizens.

Trump I believe is not a warmonger, I think he genuinely sees it as a waste of money. Unfortunately the same people who brought us the Iraq war are back in positions of influence and seem keen on an Iran war.
 
I also wouldn't make the mistake of assuming each and every US ally would be willing to touch this fight the US is stirring up with a 10-foot pole.

The US could very well be alone in this one.

The UK will slavishly follow. Their Brexit shambles and future dependence on US trade, combined with a right wing successor for Prime Minister May and their desire for a distraction from Brexit guarantee the UKs involvement.
 
So the Ayatollah's need to further restrict freedom of speech and demonstration. No responsible American would threaten destruction on Iran - would they?

Ehh... They don't like us (frequently with good reason). For some people, that's pretty much enough all on its own, before getting to Muslim, state-sponsored terrorism, they don't want us to just take their oil, and their views on human rights are frequently opposed to ours. Those are arranged in no particular order, of course. As a gay atheist, I definitely would not want to go there, for example, and I am not even remotely friendly towards them. I also definitely don't want to destroy the country over that, but... well, I do understand that there's a portion of America that's almost itching to nuke our "foes," out of a generally extremely short-sighted and hyperfocused view of the situation.

I am genuinely interested what exact material sins has Iran committed against the US this millennium?

From the wiki article about Iran and state-sponsored terrorism, for a short and quick summary of some of it...

The United States State Department has also accused Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias of terrorism against US troops, and Iran of cyberterrorism, primarily through its Quds Force.

I hear Iran is a threat to the US but how?

In practice, primarily by funding terrorist groups that cause damage to US citizens and interests, directly and indirectly. Not even close to an existential threat, of course.

Trump I believe is not a warmonger

In that he doesn't care about the usual objectives for war, sure. This is the guy who was apparently repeatedly talked down from going to war with Venezuela by pretty much everyone else in the White House, though. He's fairly certainly a pathological narcissist. He wants the attention and the praise that he thinks going to war would give him.
 
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Yep. People seem to picture this like armies lined up in a game of Risk.

The Soviets couldn't handle their conflict in Afghanistan. The USA couldn't manage Vietnam. 'Boots on the ground' in Iran would be a disaster for the US; they know it and it won't happen.

Everyone knows it isn't the chinese paying the tariffs, but that doesn't mean it shapes american foreign policy.
 
Everyone knows it isn't the chinese paying the tariffs, but that doesn't mean it shapes american foreign policy.

True, but I was responding to the idea that the US would trounce Iran in a jiffy.
 
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it wasn't when it started.
There is historical data to suggest that support for the President is positively correlated with US deaths in conflict.


It wasn't too many years ago that I had this conversation with my elderly parents:

"We should have gone into Iraq right after 9/11."
"Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11."
"Baghdad did.'
"Iraq. Had nothing. To do. With 9/11."
 
It wasn't too many years ago that I had this conversation with my elderly parents:

"We should have gone into Iraq right after 9/11."
"Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11."
"Baghdad did.'
"Iraq. Had nothing. To do. With 9/11."

I was in a class several years after 9/11. Nearly identical conversation, though more focused on Saddam Hussain than Iraq.
 
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J_Patriot
@J_TrumpIN

Twitter VICIOUS censorship still hitting MAGA movement HARD.

JAMES WOODS SUSPENDED DAY 32!

If you think this is TOTAL BS,

Let’s make one last ditch effort to bring
@RealJamesWoods
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1. Share this tweet
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3. Follow ALL who RT & Reply

NO MATTER WHAT
 
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